From our friends at WNY Drilling Defense, and Food and Water Watch comes a screening of the movie “Gas Land” whose director was arrested recently while setting up to film a U.S. House of Representatives meeting on hydraulic fracturing. This comes as actions are being made now in Niagara Falls NY to treat waste water from the environmentally dangerous process known as hydraulic fracturing, which has a direct harm on the water that people use to drink. It is fitting at this time that the setting of the screening of this film is in Niagara Falls. ”Gasland” is documentary about hydraulic fracturing or ‘Fracking. It has won a Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize, and a Prime Time Emmy Award. A question and answer period facilitated by Rita Yelda of Food & Water Watch will immediately follow. This event is free and open to the public.
“One cannot help but feel that the New York State (NYS) Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens and Governor Cuomo have thrown Western New York under the bus when it comes to hydraulic fracturing (fracking), and though we can claim to have the head of the Senate Environmental Conservation Committee representing us, Senator Grisanti, we have yet to see results.
Draft regulations released by the NYS DEC recommend that fracking/horizontal drilling be banned entirely in the New York City and Syracuse watersheds, but no Western New York watersheds have been protected. Western New York watersheds would be susceptible to contamination from drilling operations, and local residents may be forced to rely on outdated filtration systems as a line of defense. A September 15, 2011 letter to Governor Cuomo from 59 scientists, several in the National Academy of Sciences, said, “We urge the state to reconsider its position that existing water filtration systems provide adequate protection against the risk of hydraulic fracturing.”
If plans to treat fracked water in Niagara Falls move forward, Western New York will also be left to address the toxic waste created by the process. In 2011, Niagara Falls was the first place to claim their desire to treat toxic fracking wastewater and began testing.There are concerns that the Niagara Falls plant lacks the capacity to filter out radiation or the more than 600 chemicals found in fracking wastewater, and no analysis of the possible impacts of treating this wastewater has been shared with the public. Water from the treatment plant would be released into the Niagara River, which flows into Niagara Falls, Lake Ontario, and other Great Lakes communities, posing serious risks to regional and international resources alike. Solids removed from the waste would be trucked to nearby landfills, spreading the contamination around. Why does Niagara Fall’s have to bear the burden of treating the rest of the state’s waste?
Currently, the NYS DEC is reviewing their study on fracking, as well as comments, before trying to regulate and move forward with drilling in 2012. Be part of the movement and find out the facts about fracking at this screening of “Gasland” in Niagara Falls, NY. Short Q+A with Rita Yelda of Food & Water Watch and WNY Drilling Defense afterwards.”
-WNY Drilling Defense
WHAT: “Gasland” Screening and Q+A w/ FWW and Sierra Club
WHEN: TONIGHT, Wednesday February 15, 2012 6-8:30pm
WHERE: Niagara Falls Library Auditorium, Earl W. Brydges Building ,1425 Main Street Niagara Falls, NY 14305